Could West Texas be a site for high-level radioactive waste?

Texas governor Rick Perry says: "Sure. I think there are a couple of sites in the State of Texas that the local communities actively are pursuing that possibility."

Of course, the owners of those potential high-level radioactive waste dumps happen to be major supporters of Perry's political career, an Atomic Age version of crony capitalism.

As reported by KCBD.

"Measured Progress on Nuclear Security," or a "World Awash in Nuclear Explosive"?

The Nuclear Genie, as depicted in Walt Disney's 1950s pro-nuclear propaganda book "Our Friend the Atom"The New York Times editorial board has cited "Measured Progress on Nuclear Security," given Japan's pledge to turn over a small fraction of its potentially weapons-usable plutonium and highly enriched uranium to the U.S. for "disposal."

But as the Center for Public Integrity and Truthout have warned in an article by Douglas Birch and R. Jeffrey Smith entitled "The World Awash in Nuclear Explosive?", we have a frighteningly long way to go in our attempts to put the nuclear weapons proliferation genie back in the bottle.

Ironically enough, Tom Cochran at NRDC warns that the imminent opening of Japan's Rokkasho commercial irradiated nuclear fuel reprocessing facility could set the stage for catastrophic nuclear weapons proliferation.

JRP announces additional hearings on OPG's DUD

The proposed location of the DUD at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, less than a mile from the Great Lakes shore in Kincardine, OntarioThe three member Canadian federal Joint Review Panel (JRP) overseeing Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) environmental assessment regarding its proposed DGR (Deep Geologic Repository, or, according to critics, DUD -- for Deep Underground Dump) has announced additional hearings to be held at a date still to be announced. The JRP's announcement is below.

If you haven't already, please join over 50,000 others by signing the Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump petition, and widely share it with your contacts! Also, please consider urging your town, county, and state to pass resolutions opposing the DUD, as have dozens of municipalities across Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario. The Great Lakes are a planetary treasure -- 20% of the world's surface fresh water, drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations -- and must be protected for the future!

JRP announcement, March 26, 2014:

Interested Parties:

The Deep Geologic Repository Joint Review Panel has requested additional information from Ontario Power Generation and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The requests are available on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Registry Internet site at http://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documents/p17520/98790E.pdf and http://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documents/p17520/98789E.pdf.  

Once the Panel has received adequate responses to its information requests, it plans to schedule additional hearing days. The purpose of the additional hearing days will be to provide the Panel and Interested Parties with the opportunity to address any outstanding questions in relation to the subjects addressed in information requests issued by the Panel since November, 2013. Details related to the focus, procedures, deadlines and scheduling of the additional hearing days will be provided in the near future.

Interested Parties are encouraged to check the public registry for the information requests that have been issued by the Panel to date and the responses that continue to be received.

Also, please be reminded that the Panel continues to apply criteria to all submissions that it receives to decide whether or not it will accept that submission for consideration in the review. The Panel has decided to clarify section 8.11 of the Public Hearing Procedures. At this stage of the process, the applicable criteria are:

Ø  Whether similar submissions have been made by others;

Ø  Whether the submission contains new information that is within the mandate of the Panel and not already on the record; or

Ø  Whether the submission is from a group or individual that has not previously participated in the review.

Joint Review Panel Secretariat

160 Elgin St., 22nd Floor

Ottawa ON K1A 0H3

Tel.: 1‐866‐582‐1884 or 613‐957‐0301

Email: DGR.Review@ceaa-acee.gc.ca

Gundersen: Forever deadly radioactive waste, versus renewables

Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates, Inc.As Fairewinds Associates, Inc.'s Chief Engineer, Arnie Gundersen (photo, left), concluded his keynote presentation at the Beyond Nuclear/FOE/NEIS "Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High" conference in Chicago in Dec. 2012:

"What we're seeing is that the cost of solar is plummeting while nuclear is rising," Gundersen said, adding that he often hears the rebuttal that the sun doesn't shine day and night. "But if you believe that man can build a repository to store nuclear waste for a quarter of a million years, surely those same people can find a way to store electricity overnight." ---GAZETTENET.com, November 16, 2012

Gundersen serves as the expert witness for an environnental coalition (Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and Sierra Club, Ohio Chapter) that has challenged the risky, experimental steam generator replacements at Davis-Besse.

An overlapping coalition (including the Green Party of Ohio) has raised the radioactive waste dilemma and the renewables alternative as major arguments against the 20-year license extension at Davis-Besse.

Opponents to 20 more years at Davis-Besse cite radioactive waste dilemma

Environmental coalition attorney Terry Lodge of ToledoThe environmental coalition opposing the 20-year license extension sought by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) at its problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shore east of Toledo has spoken out at NRC Environmental Impact Statement public comment meetings. The coalition issued a press release, focused on the unsolved dilemma created by Davis-Besse's ongoing generation of forever deadly high-level radioactive waste, as well as the renewables alternative (wind power, solar PV, etc.) to a risky, dubious 20 more years of atomic reactor operations.

The press release quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps: “The worsening cracking of Davis-Besse’s concrete containment, the corrosion of its inner steel containment vessel, the risks of its experimental steam generator replacement, and its recently revealed Shield Building wall gap are clear signs that this atomic reactor is overdue for retirement and decommissioning.”

The coalition includes Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio. Terry Lodge of Toledo serves as the coalition's legal counsel.

Update on March 25, 2014 by admin

As the column in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists by Robert Alvarez of Institute for Policy Studies makes clear, the troubled Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico is used for disposal of trans-uranic nuclear weapons complex wastes. However, as testimony to NRC by Terry Lodge (photo, above left) shows, WIPP's radioactivity leakage also has significance for commercial irradiated nuclear fuel -- undermining NRC assumptions which form the basis for Davis-Besse's current operating license, as well as its proposed license extension.